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Ross Douthat

The years of Senator DeMint

It really was important for Republicans to get more serious about entitlements and to shake off their Bush-era blitheness about deficits. The principles of many Tea Partiers really were an improvement over the transparent cynicism of a Tom DeLay.

But if DeMint-style retrenchment was necessary for Republicans, it wasn’t anywhere near sufficient. The conservatism of 2011 and 2012 had a lot to say about the long-term liabilities of the American government but far too little to say about the most immediate anxieties of American citizens, from rising health care costs to stagnating wages to the socioeconomic malaise spreading across the country’s working class. Neither the Reagan legacy nor the current conservative catechism holds the solutions to these problems; they require Republicans to apply their principles more creatively, and think about policy anew.

So it’s fitting, perhaps, that the same week DeMint announced his departure from the Senate, one of the conservatives he fostered gave a speech that tried to do just that. This was Marco Rubio, who used an address at the Jack Kemp Foundation dinner to speak frankly about problems that too many Republicans have ignored these last four years — the “opportunity gap” opening between the well educated and the rest, the barriers to upward mobility, the struggles of the poor.

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This was Marco Rubio, who used an address at the Jack Kemp Foundation dinner to speak frankly about problems that too many Republicans have ignored these last four years — the “opportunity gap” opening between the well educated and the rest, the barriers to upward mobility, the struggles of the poor.

The “Education” gap is phony. Many of the serially unemployed have Federally/state subsidized College degrees. In fact, a college degree is worth what a High School diploma was 20 years ago. The market if flooded with college educated nincompoops. People who should have gotten into a trade program, not a masters degree in useless fields.

Once again Doutbat proves he’s a liberal pretending to be a conservative. Attacking DeMint’s concept that the party wasn’t sufficiently conservative enough saying that idea had “failed” because Mitt Romney didn’t get elected?? Mitt Romney IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE, Ross Doutbat. The party DID NOT move towards conservatives. The GOP is now proving that by showing Obama that they will cave in to his class warfare campaign in these fiscal cliff talks. DeMint’s idea that the GOP has failed because it isn’t conservative enough is precisely correct. It is the party that failed, not DeMint.

One of the real problems is the notion that any job is good for the economy. Too many who have jobs these days: trial lawyers, government bureaucrats, public and private union members, media, public relations, human resources and compliance are simply overhead and counterproductive. They come at a cost to economic growth because they weigh down job-creating businesses with needless housekeeping leaving less on the table to offer actual productive workers. Too many passengers are out there who think that businesses are in business to provide jobs and health insurance to employees rather than to deliver a product or service the public needs at a mutually agreeable price. Jobs are a byproduct of successful businesses needing more hands on deck to handle the demand for their products and/or services, not some ill-defined “right”.

This was Marco Rubio, who used an address at the Jack Kemp Foundation dinner to speak frankly about problems that too many Republicans have ignored these last four years — the “opportunity gap” opening between the well educated and the rest, the barriers to upward mobility, the struggles of the poor.

Rubio’s an idiot. He can take his amnesty plans and his treasonous “path to citizenship” ideas and shove them. He’s worthless. And this education BS is just more of the same from him. Never in history has more educational materials, more reference books, more free coursework been available to anyone. The internet puts at ones fingertips assets that no one in the world had access to just 30 years ago. And if someone doesn’t have internet at home they can just tool on down to the public library or pick up a $100 laptop and hook up at a free Wifi hotspot and have free coursework and books from all over the world available to them.

There are no excuses for anyone not to get educated and politicians who spout this class warfare cr@p with respect to education really tick me off. I wish Rubio would just go away, already. He’s an azz.

Once again Doutbat proves he’s a liberal pretending to be a conservative. Attacking DeMint’s concept that the party wasn’t sufficiently conservative enough saying that idea had “failed” because Mitt Romney didn’t get elected?? Mitt Romney IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE, Ross Doutbat. The party DID NOT move towards conservatives. The GOP is now proving that by showing Obama that they will cave in to his class warfare campaign in these fiscal cliff talks. DeMint’s idea that the GOP has failed because it isn’t conservative enough is precisely correct. It is the party that failed, not DeMint.

Warner Todd Huston on December 9, 2012 at 4:54 PM

Agreed. Mitt Romney was hardly a fire-breathing conservative. Romney had previously described his political views as progressive, had been a supporter of abortion, had been to the left of Ted Kennedy on homosexual issues, had supported cap & trade, had supported gun control, had supported TARP, and oh yes, had served as the architect of Obamacare by creating Romneycare.

Douthat completely misses the boat on this one. As he does with his wistful regrets about Christine O’Donnell:

DeMint’s zeal gave his party’s leadership headaches, and his support for no-hopers like Christine O’Donnell helped cost Republicans seats they might have won.

It was better to have lost with O’Donnell than to have won with Castle. We might as well have nominated Pelosi so long as we were supposed to nominate Castle.

The only redeeming value from Douthat’s article is the following:

But if DeMint-style retrenchment was necessary for Republicans, it wasn’t anywhere near sufficient. The conservatism of 2011 and 2012 had a lot to say about the long-term liabilities of the American government but far too little to say about the most immediate anxieties of American citizens, from rising health care costs to stagnating wages to the socioeconomic malaise spreading across the country’s working class. Neither the Reagan legacy nor the current conservative catechism holds the solutions to these problems; they require Republicans to apply their principles more creatively, and think about policy anew.

But if DeMint-style retrenchment was necessary for Republicans, it wasn’t anywhere near sufficient. The conservatism of 2011 and 2012 had a lot to say about the long-term liabilities of the American government but far too little to say about the most immediate anxieties of American citizens, from rising health care costs to stagnating wages to the socioeconomic malaise spreading across the country’s working class. Neither the Reagan legacy nor the current conservative catechism holds the solutions to these problems; they require Republicans to apply their principles more creatively, and think about policy anew.

So it’s fitting, perhaps, that the same week DeMint announced his departure from the Senate, one of the conservatives he fostered gave a speech that tried to do just that. This was Marco Rubio, who used an address at the Jack Kemp Foundation dinner to speak frankly about problems that too many Republicans have ignored these last four years — the “opportunity gap” opening between the well educated and the rest, the barriers to upward mobility, the struggles of the poor.

The answer really is that Americans will have to get used to a lower standard of living due to the accretion of socialism and entitlement programs. The GOP tried to paper over this with Ryan’s “premium support” model for healthcare, which would probably result in individuals being covered for less over time; the Dem’s answer is IPAB and rationing under the guise of “Affordable” healthcare.

No-one likes being told that they have to eat their peas. So the “creative” solutions are marketing proposals that try to convince americans that their lower standard of living really isn’t that — that things will get better if we pick policy “X” or policy “Y”.

The reality is that the $16T+ in debt (and the ~$80T in unfunded future liabilities) has to be paid for, or the country has to default. There is no good answer to this fact. Politics, in the near term, will be about trying to convince people that the s*it-sandwhich they’re eating (and getting s*ittier by the minute) really is filet mignon.